#EndSARS: Lagos Police boss Odumosu apologises, frees arrested protesters, journalists

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Post created on October 21, 2021

Lagos Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu has apologised to journalists and anyone who was brutalised, harassed and wrongfully arrested during the #EndSARSMemorial protests.

The police boss made this apology at the Lekki toll gate, after a brief meeting with some of his men.

#EndSARSMemorial protesters had earlier been picked and locked up inside a huge police van at the Lekki Toll Gate on Wednesday, October 20, 2021.

Hakeem later asked them to identify themselves, one after the other and those who were able to identify themselves were let out.

Protesters who could not identify themselves remain locked up in this van, in the sweltering temperatures.

“We will investigate those still locked up in the van. We are taking them to the police station. Once we ascertain that they are harmless, we let them go,” Odumosu said from behind a face shield, as dozens of other police officers mill around him.

“That was done by Judases among us. By ignorant officers. This uniform I’m wearing, you paid for it,” the police boss lectures.

The drive-through protest is now over, moments after police dispersed young protesters with teargas canisters.

Earlier, a man who claimed to be an Uber driver, was bloodied, pepper-sprayed and dragged on the road, as police made to forcibly throw him into the van.

The convoy memorial marked the one year anniversary of the viral police brutality protests of October 2020.

On October 20, 2020, multiple media reports claimed that young Nigerians protesting decades of police brutality and extortion under the #EndSARS banner, were shot at by soldiers who had been ordered to enforce a hurriedly declared curfew.

In a response to the allegations, the Nigerian Army said though they were invited to restore order at the Lekki Toll Gate, they did not shoot at protesters.